ation of peace and the
recovery of trade and credit.(921) Such a petition was so diametrically
opposed to the sentiments of the royalist lord mayor and his brother
aldermen that they got up and left the court rather than allow the
petition to be sanctioned by their presence. Strictly speaking there was
no longer any court. Nevertheless an attempt was made to get the Common
Sergeant and then the Town Clerk(922) to put the question, but they
refused to do so in the absence of the mayor and aldermen, and they too
got up and left the council chamber. Thus left to themselves the members
of the court voted Colonel Owen Rowe into the chair. The petition was then
three times read, and after due deliberation unanimously agreed to, twenty
members of the council being nominated to carry it up to the House,
together with a narrative of the proceedings that had taken place that day
in court.(923)

(M471)

In submitting the petition to the Commons on the 15th January, Colonel
Robert Tichborne, a member of the council, explained the reason why the
petition varied in title from other petitions from the city, purporting,
as it did, to come from the commons of the city alone, and not from the
mayor, aldermen and commons, and with the petition presented a narrative
of the proceedings that had taken place in the council two days
before.(924) The House readily accepted the explanation (as was only to be
expected), and declared that the petition and narrative might and should
of right be entered on the records of the Common Council. "As to the
Common Council of the city of London, and so owned by this House"--the
Speaker went on to say--"they take notice of the extraordinary affections
long since and often expressed by many particular persons, if not by every
member of your present body, especially of that true and publick principle
which carried you on to the framing of this petition, and to your going
through with it, notwithstanding the opposition and withdrawing of your
mayor and aldermen." The Speaker assured the deputation that the House
fully approved of the members continuing to sit as a Common Council in the
absence or dissent of the mayor or aldermen, or both together, and
concluded by saying that both the petition and narrative would receive
speedy consideration.(925)

(M472)

On the 23rd January two officers from the army waited upon the Court of
Aldermen and informed the members that the sum of L4,000 out of the
L19,000 for